The Fab Four
by Hatter of Madness
Summary: With all of the other kids from Mrs. Frizzle's class doing their own thing now that they're teenagers, the four remaining kids (Keesha, Ralphie, Phoebe, and Carlos) are the best friends that anyone could ask for. But everything is not as it seems in their perfect friendship. Rated T for adult themes/language. Not for the homophobic/weak at heart.


**~*~The Fab Four~*~  
****by Hatter of Madness**

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**A/N: I never put A/N's in the beginning of a story, with one exception of a Glee fanfic that I still need to finish… I have a bad habit of not finishing stories, but I have almost everything planned out for this one, so I plan to update on weekends and such as long as people like it. Anyway, this A/N was to say that there are some themes in this that you may not like. There is going to be battling with sexuality (both orientation and _that_), bullying, and maybe some questionable choices by characters. This only really features four of the Magic School Bus kids, which is where the title comes from, and I don't really like the favorite MSB pairings (such as Arnold/Phoebe, DA/Carlos, etc.), so I'm sure that this will probably be something new and different to some of you. Also, this first chapter is really dramatic to begin with, so sorry if that puts you off. Okay, enough rambling! Hope you enjoy!**

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**_Omniscient POV_**

Keesha sat in chemistry, watching the clock and waiting for the bell to ring. She tapped her pencil on the desk impatiently, looking at the clock with one eye and at her notes with the other, which was a task that was easier said than done.

Getting more and more impatient with each _tick _of the clock, she looked at the front cover of her binder, at the picture of her and her three best friends that was taken on the last day of freshman year. She stood at the left hand side of the photograph, her long dark hair curled in ringlets around her face. Next to her was Carlos Ramon, the wisecracking boy that always had a joke handy when someone needed it. To the right of the picture version of Carlos was the soft spoken sweetheart Phoebe Terese; and at the right edge of the portrait stood Ralphie Tennelli.

Keesha's heart skipped a beat upon seeing Ralphie. She had had a crush on him since their fourth grade days in Ms. Frizzle's rather eccentric—and field trip oriented—class. And since the days in the fourth grade, their close knit group of eight had dwindled down to four.

As she was always the brightest one in the class, Dorothy Ann had skipped junior high school altogether and, at sixteen years old, was a freshman at Yale University, majoring in Physics. None of her peers from Ms. Frizzle's class had had any classes with her since elementary school, so they had drifted their separate ways when she started to attend James Buchanan High School.

The first year of high school, Arnold had been the mascot. He didn't enjoy it much and found that high school life was too overwhelming. He began to be homeschooled online at the end of freshman year. He still attended school functions, such as football games and occasionally dances, but he was not a Bulldog anymore.

Tim had gone to the crosstown rival junior high, Rosa Parks Middle School, and had also gone to the rival high school that his junior high fed into, Scott Key High. He was the star of the track and cross country teams there, and he had, at one point, been vying for Wanda's attention, but she did not reciprocate.

And as for Miss Wanda Li herself, she was the only one of the 'other four' (as Keesha and her friends called them) that actually still attended Buchanan High. The thing about Wanda, though, was that she had changed. She and Arnold had been best of friends in freshman year, but when he left, she totally snapped and became the school bully; her catchphrase 'weasly wimp' had a completely different meaning when she and her friends were shoving your head in a toilet.

"Keesha? What is the answer?"

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**_Keesha's POV_**

I completely snapped out of my thoughts when I heard Mrs. Samuels's voice calling my name. We were doing a worksheet on the acidity and basicity of different solutions and there were three problems on the board. Apparently, I had been assigned the second as my mind drifted to other places…AKA, places much more exciting than the chem lab.

The question that was waiting for me read: "Why is potassium hydroxide (KOH) a strong base?"

_Oh, that's easy, _I thought, fighting the temptation to roll my eyes. Instead, I answered, "It's a strong base because it releases hydrogen atoms easily."

"Very good," Mrs. Samuels said, frowning. I smiled a smug smile at her. It was no secret that Mrs. Samuels hated me. This was probably because I was the laziest student in the entire class, yet also had the highest grade. I could goof off and zone out as much as I wanted to, and I would still be able to have the best grades on tests and quizzes. I wasn't so sure what it was; maybe I just had a natural talent for chemistry. After all, DA and I had been good friends in elementary school, and science was her forte.

Mrs. Samuels then called on Janet to answer the final question: "Of four different laboratory solutions of the following pH values, which is the most acidic? 3; 5; 11; and 7." Janet, too, answered the question correctly (spoiler alert: it's 3) and I quickly shoved my stuff in my bag.

It was lunch after chemistry, which was a great mix if you wanted to diminish your appetite. I waited patiently—as patiently as possible, anyway—for the bell to ring, and when it did, I bounded out of my seat. I was definitely on track to being valedictorian, a position that I knew was mine once D.A. was promoted two grades. I missed her, of course, but I didn't miss competing with her in school.

Since it was lunch, that meant it was time for me to meet up with Carlos, Ralphie, and Phoebe. All three of us had different classes at that time, but we all had sixth period together. Even though it was advanced algebra two, that was easily my favorite class; Mr. Raynes was a great teacher and we actually learned a lot.

Well, at least Phoebe and I did. Mr. Raynes had made the bad decision of allowing us to pick our own seating chart, and, of course, Ralphie and Carlos sat directly next to each other.

As I walked to the small grassy area that the four of us ate lunch at, I could make out Carlos's gray shirt from where he sat on the bench opposite the field. It was clearly visible, even about a mile away. I smiled, walking up to him. But when I got closer, I realized something was definitely wrong.

Was Carlos..._crying?_

Carlos never cried. He wise cracked and made stupid jokes time to time, I knew that. But cried?

"Carlos?" I asked gently as I came near him. He wasn't a crier, so obviously, something was _very, very_ bad. "What's wrong?"

He just shook his head 'no'.

"Carlos, you know you can talk to me," I said. "I'll understand."

"No, you won't, Keesha! Nobody does!" he snapped, positively scaring me out of my wits but I didn't let it show.

"Carlos…" I said quietly. "I want to, okay? You and me... Let's go somewhere quiet, okay? Where no one will hear us. Then you can tell me whatever it is that's bothering you."

He sniffed once and nodded, following me to the grassy field adjacent to the main office where we usually ate lunch. It was always deserted, so it was safe for us to conduct private conversations. He immediately sat down on the ground and allowed more tears to flow. My only thought was, _Oh bad, oh bad bad bad…_

"Okay, don't tell me nothing is wrong," I said before he could even start. "I know you, Carlos, and I know that you have a joke for any and all occasions."

"I'm going to be murdered," he muttered. I blinked in surprise.

"Okay, _why_ are you going to be murdered?"

"Mrs. Sanders caught me texting and she took my phone away."

I frowned. That was it? "Mrs. Sanders catches people on their phones all the time, Carlos. What makes you so special that you're going to be murdered? Your parents just have to get your phone after school, right?"

"_That's_ why I'm going to be murdered, Keesha." His eyes were very red; I had never seen him like this before. He had always seemed so invincible. Now, he was anything but. "When my parents get my phone back, they'll look through the messages. And that's why I'm going to be murdered. There's...something in them that they can't see."

It was starting to make just an inkling of sense, but I was still missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. "Okay, so your parents will be really mad. Why, did you swear? Say something you shouldn't?"

"I was something I shouldn't be."

Tears poured down his face yet again. But as much as I liked the fact that he was being so open and honest and wasn't hiding this from me, that still left so many unanswered questions, and what little sense the situation made wasn't enough to figure out what was going on. He was something he shouldn't be? What was that supposed to mean?

"Carlos?" I probed, feeling very worried. "What do you mean? What will your parents see?"

At that moment, Ralphie started to walk up, a look of concern on his face. "Carlos? What—"

"Ralphie, not now," I said gently. I figured that this was probably a private thing and that it should stay that way. But Carlos shook his head.

"No, I want him to know. He…he needs to know, too. "

Ralphie gave me a quizzical look as he sat down on the grass. I sighed as I started to explain. "Mrs. Sanders caught Carlos texting and now he's afraid that his parents will get mad at something in the messages, because...?" We both turned to Carlos.

"Please don't tell," he said, tears still in his eyes.

"We _won't_," I assured, though I had no idea what was going on.

"Please don't judge me, either. You are the best friends I've ever had, and Phoebe too. I just..._can't_..."

"We won't, don't worry, Carlos," Ralphie said. "And when Pheebs gets here, I'll make sure that she won't judge you, either."

He took a deep breath, seemingly to avoid even more tears, then he stammered out, "If my parents see my phone and look at those messages, they're going to know that I'm gay."

Both Ralphie and I were shocked into a stunned silence. What? There was _no way _that Carlos was…well, _that._ He was such a lady's man that it did not even seem possible for him to be on _that _team. But after thinking it over, I realized it had to just be a clever ruse in order to hide it, since he seemed so scared of letting anyone know. I was accepting right away, because there wasn't anything I could do about it, but I was afraid of Ralphie's response.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, my fears diminishing quickly. He didn't sound rude or standoffish; rather, he was plagued with curiosity.

"I couldn't let it get out," he said, still in tears. "I mean, I wanted to tell you guys, and Phoebe, too, all three of you, really! But I was afraid that you wouldn't…" He stopped, trying not to cry anymore. It was a weird position for all three of us to be in.

"Okay, so you're gay," I said, bluntly and quietly. "How are your parents going to find out from looking at your phone?"

"I was texting my boyfriend," he said.

"Wait," Ralphie said, "so not only are you gay and you didn't tell me, _but you also have a boyfriend?_ Come on! I would have been _great _at giving boy advice!"

"Ralphie," I said sternly, giving him a look, though I, too, wondered why he hadn't just come out with it (okay, horrible choice of words) if it was that serious. "Well, you were just texting him, right? You didn't actually…"

"There's a heart by his name in my phone," he said—no, blubbered. "And we said…things."

"Things?" Ralphie repeated.

"Boyfriend, girlfriend things. Only…I guess it'd be boyfriend, boyfriend things here."

"Okay, let me see if I got this so far," I said. "You texted your…_boyfriend_ in Mrs. Sanders's class. She caught you and took your phone away, presumably gave it to the office. Your parents have to come claim it now, and when they do, they're going to see who you were texting and what you were saying. So they are going to see what you've been hiding. Is that all?" He nodded. "So, the problem in this is…?"

"My parents are Catholic," he said.

"Okay," I said, already trying to think of how to console him. This was a lot of information for me to deal with all at once. "Maybe we should wait to tell Phoebe until later, okay? If we do that, though, you should go to the bathroom and clean up a little so that she doesn't suspect anything. And I promise, I'm going to try to think of something while you're gone."

He nodded, stood, and walked to the bathroom without a word.

Ralphie and I stared at each other for a long while, and he finally broke the silence. "_Man, _did you see that coming?"

"Nope," I said. "I can honestly say that I did not." I heaved a sigh. "Well, who do you think his boyfriend is?"

"Hopefully not someone popular, or else I'll be beating myself up over it for not seeing it sooner." He thought for a minute, then said, "Man, why didn't he tell me?"

"He seemed pretty nervous just now. He probably was afraid to say anything."

"I'm his best friend!"

"I know that, but he seemed so…shaken up."

"I would have understood, though!"

"He probably thought you might have…rejected him…"

"Why would I care that he's _gay?!_"

"Ralphie, keep it down…"

He stopped talking, but the silence was almost as though he had interrupted me. Then, finally, he looked at me with a strange look on his face. "You know, I should have seen this coming. I mean, have you ever noticed that his girlfriends never last long?"

"No," I said, but then I thought about it. He had dated Michelle a little bit last year, and they had broken up in less than a month. And when he was with her, there was no sign of affection whatsoever. It was like she was just…_there_. "I wonder if his 'girlfriends' are…"

"Aware of the fact that they were just a big gay beard? Probably not."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Yes it was!"

"_No,_ I meant I wonder if they were aware of the fact that he wasn't interested in them in _that way._ I mean, he's pretty popular, you know? I'm sure there are girls all over school that like him."

"Like you?" Ralphie teased.

I tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach as he mentioned it. It wasn't that I had ever once taken an inkling of interest in Carlos (apart from the time in kindergarten when he had the coveted sixty-four pack of crayons with a sharpener in the back), but rather, that Ralphie had been the object of my affection for what felt like years. The fact that he would even suggest that I liked Carlos was either his way of masking his reciprocated feelings for me…or he was just teasing me.

"_No,_ not like me. Like…Michelle. You know how they dated last year."

"Yeah, whatever. More like she dated, and he used." His face suddenly lit up, as though struck by a great thought. "Hey, you know…I just noticed something."

"What?" I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to know, but let Ralphie speak anyway.

"He's probably been trying to hide this for _years!_" Before I could ask, he continued by saying, "I mean, when we were in middle school, we were both on the soccer team, right? And I would have done track, but I didn't like Coach Wilson? Well, the week before playoffs, all the guys on the team gave their jerseys to girls to wear, like their girlfriends and stuff."

"Right, and you didn't have a girlfriend, so you gave yours to me." That was a moment I had rejoiced in, and Phoebe would never let me live it down.

"Right. And since _Carlos _didn't have a girlfriend, I said that he should have given it to Phoebe. But then he got all defensive since I pointed out that he didn't have a girlfriend, and immediately after that, he hooked up with Olivia Pendleton and gave her his jersey."

"And they split up immediately after the game," I said, remembering.

"_And,_ when we were talking about the girls we were going to ask to wear our jerseys, we all started to help him trying to find someone to give his to. And he seemed really nervous every time we mentioned a girl. Not in the 'I like her' kind of way, but the 'I don't like anyone' kind of way, you know?"

"I think that that's a little judgmental, don't you think?"

"Well, we've gotta do _something._"

"About?" I felt clueless.

"We have to get his phone back before Mrs. Sanders turns it in!"

"No way!" I said in shock. "I'm not breaking the rules, even if it is to help Carlos."

I knew how unbelievably selfish I was sounding, but I had a record to protect. As much as I sympathized with him, it would be hard to be valedictorian if I had it on my record that I stole a confiscated phone from a teacher. Before I could continue on, however, I saw Phoebe approaching and we fell silent. "Here comes Phoebe. _Don't say anything to her._"

"Got it," Ralphie said, sounding bored.

Phoebe sat with us on the grass, a tray containing a school salad in her hands. Ralphie, too, realized that he wasn't eating anything and started to tend to his own lunch, saying with a mouthful of food, "Hey, Pheebs."

She grimaced, saying, "Hey, Ralphie. Hi, Keesha. Where's Carlos?"

"He'll be here," I said, not wanting to think about him crying, the single scariest moment in my life. "You just had Mademoiselle Leon, right?" Mademoiselle, or Señora, Leon was both a Spanish and French teacher at the school. Honestly, nobody was entirely sure if she was a Spaniard or if she was French, due to the fact that she was divorced and her surname could go either way; plus, added onto the fact that she was trilingual, both her French and Spanish accent were impeccable. I had her for Spanish, whilst Phoebe was in French.

"Yep, and I actually have an amazing grade in that class," Phoebe said. While she was a smart, kind girl, Phoebe's grades had struggled a little bit, and we had no idea why. If she wasn't careful, I feared, she would be sent to the continuation high school across town. "She thinks that I'm _très magnifique_."

"Good," I said. I was worried about the slipping of Phoebe's grades.

At that, Carlos started to walk back over and I tensed a bit. He sat down and said, "Hey, Pheeb," in a bland voice.

She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "Hi, Carlos," she said sweetly. "Why didn't you answer my text? I wanted to know if you wanted to get in the lunch line with me."

"I'm not really hungry. And I didn't text you because Mrs. Sanders took my phone away," he said. I couldn't help but note how scared he sounded. Maybe Phoebe couldn't notice, but Ralphie and I sure did. "And my parents are going to _kill_ me when they find out!"

"Why?" Phoebe asked.

Carlos looked like a deer caught in the headlights, so I picked up the slack for him. "They don't know that he texts in class." He shot me a look that said it all: _Thank you._

"Oh," she said, then added quietly, "my parents don't care anymore, about that or my grades."

"That's rough," I said, sighing.

To break the tension, Ralphie asked, "You aren't having lunch, Keesha?"

"Not hungry." I grimaced, thinking of the weird things that had just happened in Mrs. Samuels's class. She had showed us a video about acids and bases, which one would think would be innocent…but it was anything _but. _"It's hard to be hungry after chemistry."

"At least you're _in_ chemistry," Ralphie said, frowning. "I have to retake biology."

"So you've told us. And how is that going?"

"Not well. But I'm passing."

Phoebe looked at him. "Now, define 'passing'? My standard, C's—or an A, or…"

"An A? What do you think I am, a computer? Well, I don't have a D. I have a C—barely."

"Speaking of C's. Do you guys see Wanda?" Phoebe asked, changing the subject, considering school was not something she did very well in anymore.

I looked up just in time to see Wanda walking through school with her usual crowd of girls following her. Crystal Brunner, Jenni Malik, and Sierra Mariano all had one thing in common: they were not afraid of Wanda, so instead, they idolized her. This was really a shame, since I had actually not only been friends with Wanda at one point, but Jenni, too. Now, Wanda and her friends walked around the school like they were the most important kids ever, and they weren't afraid to use violence to get what they wanted.

"She's so…mean looking."

"And that's news to you?" Ralphie asked.

"Well, I don't know how else to word it."

"Why does it matter?" Carlos said, finally speaking up again. "I mean, now that she's the high bitch in charge here…"

I was drinking water, one thing I had allowed myself to, which I promptly sprayed back out. "_Carlos!_" I said in shock. "She _was_ one of our friends…"

"Yeah, and look how that changed, Keesha. I'd never be caught dead with Wanda now. That would just give her an excuse to get me in a headlock and take my lunch money."

"Nah, she only does that to freshmen girls," Ralphie said. "The occasional sophomore, too."

Phoebe winced; presumably, she knew this from experience. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it for a second, then turned my attention back to Ralphie. None of us knew what had happened with Wanda. It took Arnold leaving for her to snap, but what did _Arnold_ have to do with her personality? As far as I knew, he was like the beginning of her cronies. Maybe that was what had caused the shift.

It was bittersweet for us to be talking about Wanda, not just because of what had changed. It was also due to how quickly our numbers had dwindled in the past few years. It had started with Tim. He had told us on the last day of sixth grade that he was bound for Rosa Parks and not Jemison. We only ever saw him at sports events, and we finally said that our friendship couldn't handle the separation anymore; we became a group of seven.

The next blow came from DA, when she went on to Buchanan High and we were still stuck in Jemison Middle School. We still remained our close knit group of seven, but with her making high school friends, that changed quickly, and we went down to six. Arnold was next to go after that, when he told us all that he was going to be home schooled beginning sophomore year. Wanda was the most shook up after that when our number became five. Over the summer, Phoebe and I tried to make plans with her all the time, but she always blew them off, and when we started sophomore year, she was completely different, and our number had dwindled down to four. Now, with only Carlos, Ralphie, Phoebe, and myself, I was so afraid to lose another one of my friends.

I didn't know what would happen to us if our number was anything less than four.

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**This was soooooo longgggggg. I don't usually write chapters this long, but I wanted to start off with a bang, and then I produced this. Let me know in a review if you like long chapters like this. If you do, I'll keep them long, otherwise I'm going back to shorter ones. My average is usually about 2000 words for a chapter, and this one is clocking in at over 4000. So…please review? Nothing else to see here~**

**- Hatter of Madness**


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